


cold, pissed, and short thirty minutes worth of tips

by gingerbread man (xphantomhive)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Cuddling, Fluff, I made this up, Kissing, M/M, Mostly Fluff, Stripper John, harleybert promise, i listened to y2k music the entire time i wrote this, it's not a real thing, stripper john deserves more love, the idea of john's stage name being harlequin is my favorite, what a clusterfuck tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-17
Updated: 2016-03-17
Packaged: 2018-05-27 07:39:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6275548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xphantomhive/pseuds/gingerbread%20man
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You had to dance to seven songs because Kanaya was mad at you about being two hours late, but nothing really tropes Dave showing up at <em>Alternia</em> unexpected and you losing your shit trying to explain why you're dressed like a two-dollar whore.</p><p>(You're pretty sure you wouldn't ever say anything like that, but you know he would.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	cold, pissed, and short thirty minutes worth of tips

EB: jade!

EB: JADE!

GG: oh my god!!!!

GG: what do you WANT?? im trying to sleep!!

This is ridiculous.

You’re standing at the bus stop in mid-December in nothing but a pair of skimpy black shorts and a blue sequined crop top, you have a pink bedazzled bag slung over your shoulder, you were supposed to be dancing to _Poker Face_ fifteen minutes ago, and you’re thirty minutes late for your shift. All because, as you were regretfully informed by a too-sweaty bus driver for thirty degree weather, that none of the buses are running tonight because the weather called for three feet of snow that you’re only _half_ likely to get. You’re cold, pissed, and short thirty minutes worth of tips.

EB: please, i am begging you, please.

EB: drive me to my shift.

EB: the buses aren’t running because we’re apparently getting three feet of snow tonight (lies!) and i am already thirty minutes late for my shift! kanaya is going to have my head!

GG: calm down ok??? kanaya is a perfectly understanding person and she probably wont be that mad at you

GG: besides, it isnt your fault the buses arent running!! and it isnt like you knew they werent

GG: breathe, ill be there in ten, ok?

EB: ok.

You take a few deep breaths because that’s what Jade would be telling you to do if she were here with you, and then you plop down on the rickety old wooden bench inside the tiny plexi-glass bus stop and search your (Dave’s) pink bag for your (Dave’s) red hoodie. You tug it over your head as carefully as you can manage, trying your damndest to _not_ smudge the glittery blue eyeshadow and raspberry lip gloss that Rose worked for twenty minutes to get just right.

Your legs are still uncovered, though, and whenever someone walks by they raise a curious eyebrow at you but don’t ask. You’re used to it. You draw your knees to your chest and hug them close, ignoring the strange looks you know you’re getting from the people in the diner across the street, another thing you’re used to.

Jade pulls up in a red Toyota that definitely isn’t hers and is _definitely_ Dave’s, but you’re too busy flying off of the bench and into the passenger's seat, slamming the door behind you and cranking the heat up to full to question it. Jade sets the car into drive and pulls away from the curb, looking at you in her peripheral vision. “I really wish you’d tell Dave about…” she starts, but trails off, like she usually does. You wait patiently for her to finish, which is hard for you, John Egbert, master of impatience. “Your choice. Of, profession.” She coughs into her hand.

You sigh. The only people who know about your nightly gigs at _Alternia_ are Rose, Jade, Roxy, Jane, and Calliope. The only person who should know is Rose, but Rose went and told Jade (because she’s your sister!) and Jade went and told Jane (because she’s your sister, too, and we both deserve to know!) and Jane went and told Roxy and Calliope, because she’s in a “polyamorous clusterfuck” (as Dave likes to call it) with them. “What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him?” You try, but it sounds more like a question than a statement.

“But you’re working at a strip club! As a _stripper_! You serve drinks and dance on a pole and whatever else it is strippers do, I don’t know! What if someone tries to rape you? What if you get kidnapped? Dave is your boyfriend, he has a right to know! Rose told me that he’s getting really upset because you work at nighttime, John! He has morning classes and a part-time job midday, and the _only_ time of day he can see you is night, but you’re always too busy working!” She spits out all in one breath, breaking her car in the employee parking lot almost violently.

“Stop yelling,” you respond, shouldering the door open. “I didn’t know he felt like that, okay? I’ll try to tell him soon. Promise.”

"Harleybert promise me!” She all-but screeches, and you groan. You came up with the Harleybert promise thing in sixth grade, when you started dating Dave and didn’t want her to tell _anyone_ , so you had to come up with a “special sibling pact” that could _never be broken,_  lest the breaker of the promise wanted to face dire consequences. You’d mostly let go of it when you hit high school, and now you’re twenty, but you still use it occasionally, for _very_ important things.

You hold out your hand. She grabs it and entwines your fingers. (You’d both thought the whole pinky thing was dumb, so you decided on hand-holding.) “Harleybert promise. I’ll tell Dave soon, but right now I have a shift to get to, and I’m already almost two hours late. Man, Eridan’s gonna have a cow. He probably already is.”

Jade laughs just at the mention of him. You aren’t surprised. You’ve known Eridan (Ampora) since elementary school, and in fourth grade Jade somehow managed to steal his girlfriend Feferi Peixes from him without even knowing. She broke up with Eridan after a week and started dating Jade, and they broke up after two months (they moved their relationship down to “best friends,” and you should mention that they’re still best friends today) and then Jade didn’t date anyone until eleventh grade, when she met your ex-girlfriend, Vriska Serket.

(You think they’re cute together, but you’re still a bit bitter about the whole ordeal.)

“Get out of my car!” Jade yells, drawing you out of your thoughts. You stick your tongue out at her, grab the pink bag from where it’s fallen under the glove box, and slip your heels on so that you won’t have to carry them.

“This isn’t even your car,” you reply, stepping outside. “It’s Dave’s.”

“Same difference!” She shouts, slamming your door and pulling away. You roll your eyes and take a slow walk to the employees entrance, since you’re already two hours late, anyway. You have to knock and wait for someone to answer the door, because you’d realized after you left the house that you’d forgotten your keys. You can picture exactly where they are, too - on the wooden table that’s supposed to be strictly for Dave’s turntables, that you sometimes throw your stuff onto carelessly when you come home from a long night.

A newbie answers the door, unluckily. They only peek their head out, maybe because it’s too cold, maybe because they’re suspicious of you; maybe both. “Yes?” They ask softly, and you tsk under your breath. With a quiet voice like that, they won’t make it long here.

“Yeah, I’m a veteran dancer,” you say. You’ve got your own dressing room and if they’ve been here for more than an hour, they’ve probably passed it more than once. “Harlequin.”

Their eyebrows shoot up, their mouth opens in a little ‘o,’ and you have to stifle the laugh that threatens to poor out. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t realize who you were, please don’t be mad I left you out in the cold, I’m really really sorry Harlequin, I didn’t know,” they babble as you slip inside, moving them away from the door because they seem to be more focused on apologizing than stopping the cold from coming in.

“It’s okay, you’re new,” you respond, and they breathe what you recognize as a sigh of relief. “You can call me John, if you want. You don’t have to call me Harlequin. What’s your name?”

They shift from foot to foot, scratching the back of their neck. “Well, my actual name is Tavros, but Kanaya and Porrim are trying to think of a stage name for me.”

“You’re too cute for this business.”

“I could say the same for you.”

You raise an eyebrow. Kitty’s got claws, you got it. Tavros starts apologizing profusely again, but you hold your hand up to stop him, because you’re more interested in knowing where Kanaya and Porrim are because you know they’re going to tear you a new one for being so late. “Where are Kanaya and Porrim?”

“Meeting room.”

Damn. That means you’re going to disturb them in the middle of something important. You thank the Tavros kid, who’s still shifting from foot to foot and fidgeting nervously, and then you jog down the hall to the meeting room and wrap your knuckles against the door. “Guess who,” you say, because sometimes if you’re coy and giggly they’re a little less angry with you. Your dad always told you that you were a good actor.

Porrim opens the door, one eyebrow raised. “Look at who decided to show up, Kan.”

She leans back in time for you to see Kanaya shoot out of her chair and rush over to where you’re standing, shoving Porrim out of the way and standing in front of you with her arms crossed in that motherly way she does when she’s upset. “I want to be angry with you and you certainly deserve to be yelled at, but that can wait until after you have finished with your dance because we have had Karkat and Eridan dancing together for the past two hours and I sense that they are ready to kill one another. Take that hoodie off, let me fix your hair and makeup, and then I would like you, excuse my french, to get your ass out on that stage and shake it for what it’s worth.”

You salute her. “Gotcha, Kan.”

She taps her foot impatiently while you take the hoodie off, careful not to smudge your makeup any worse than it probably already is, and once you have it over your head you stuff it back into the pink bedazzled bag it came from. Kanaya fusses with your hair like a mother does when it’s picture day, and then she licks her thumb and smooths the rough edges of your makeup (even though you’re thankful, you still make a face.)

Kanaya instructs you to get backstage. As you’re walking, you can hear her telling Porrim to make her way up to the DJ booth and tell whoever’s up there to start _your_ song (it’s the song _Homewrecker_ by Marina and the Diamonds, and for the life of you, you can’t figure out why or how it became _yours_. You don’t question Kanaya, though, because she’s Kanaya. It’s like asking your mom _why_ she keeps making meatloaf for dinner.)

You get backstage just in time for Karkat and Eridan to be leaving the stage, and they’re too busy bickering back and forth to notice you, which you’re thankful for. They’re both taller than you by 7+ inches, and you’re a scrawny little twink (Dave’s words, not yours) while they’re both not exactly _challenged_ in the strength department. Basically, as a team, they could probably kill you with their fists, and having them angry with you is an absolutely terrifying thought.

“There he is, good ol’ Johnny boy!” You hear from behind you, and you don’t even have to look to know that the person talking is Jake, your half-brother and also co-worker. “Late tonight, are we?”

You nod and breathe a heavy sigh. “Buses weren’t running, Jade had to bring me.”

He’s about to reply, but you’re too busy being pushed on-stage (by Porrim, probably) and stumbling into the pole rather than catching onto it like a “sexy” dancer does. Realistically, you’re uncoordinated and clumsy, and a job like this would probably be more suited to someone like Dave, who has the stamina of a god, but you’re good enough to get by. Plus, most of the crowd is drunk or high, and as long as you’re attractive they could care less.

The song starts, and you start your routine, the first one you always perform, the “fan favorite” as Kanaya calls it. It’s pretty basic, mostly just involves you spinning around the pole and sliding down it once or twice, sometimes shimmying your way to the end of the stage to give the rather large crowd a small, coy grin. They eat it up. If they didn’t eat it up, you wouldn’t have a bank account of full money and a pair of two-hundred dollar wireless headphones for Dave’s birthday on layaway at FYE that are mostly paid for.

Needless to say, you have the routine for _Homewrecker_ memorized. The song starts off slow, so you usually mouth the words and give the crowd a half-smile, which you know gets you your first ten dollars. Then it kicks in with pretty much no warning, and that’s when you start the _real_ act; swinging yourself around, climbing as far up the pole as you can go and sliding down until your ass _literally_ touches the stage, crawling to the edge of the stage (not unlike a lion) (okay, more like a kitten, shut up, if you weren’t cute you’d get fired) and letting a few wandering hands grab your shoulders, but not much more than that.

The DJ plays six songs for you after _Homewrecker_ \- usually, you only dance for about three, but you know Kanaya is angry about you being so late and torturing you - which is why you’re surprised that the songs you’re given aren’t that hard to come up with dances for.

Seeing as the songs, in order, are: _Lady Marmalade_ , _Poker Face_ , _Dollhouse_ (you always love dancing to that one, you won’t admit that it’s because of the ticking clock sounding noise in the beginning that reminds you of Dave), _Buttons_ , _She Wolf_ , and _Miss.Jackson_.

By the time you’ve made it backstage, you’re sweaty, tired, your muscles ache, and all you really want is to go home and take a hot bath. But you’ve got some snark to deal out (you learned from the best) and you intend to do so. You climb the mile of stairs to the DJ booth and lean against the doorjamb. Gamzee’s working the tables tonight, and when he sees you, he greets you with a simple nod. “Tell Kan I said thank you, deeply, for all of the songs about women for me to dance to, because I am obviously a woman. You wanna touch my boobs, Gam?”

He snorts, changing the track. You guess a new dancer is out. “Sure, bro. Gotta wait for my shift to end though.”

You gasp dramatically, falling against the doorframe. “I’m a taken woman! I have a strong man at home, his name is Dave, I think you’ve met him?”

“DJed with him once or twice,” Gamzee replies. “He throws down some sick tracks. You got yourself a winner, lovely lady. But if you ever need someone to feel your boobs, and he just ain’t doing it, I’m here, sweetcheeks.”

You throw your head back in a laugh. “Just tell Kan exactly what I told you with a bunch of sassiness, okay? I know it’s hard to beat my off the charts levels of sass, but I believe in you.”

Gamzee nods at you again, and you’re pretty sure you see him pull a joint out of his bag as you’re leaving, which wouldn’t really surprise you. Gamzee seemed to be pretty sober when you were talking to him, but usually he’s high. You’re stopped by Kanaya once your foot hits the last step, and she hauls you to the ground like you weigh nothing. It actually scares you how strong Kanaya really is. You wonder how she managed to even get that strong. “I see you were talking to Gamzee. I assume you intended on having him tell me something about my song choices tonight. Am I correct in my assumptions?”

You give a boneless shrug. Kanaya is still holding you up by your armpits, and when she notices she...well, she doesn’t really do anything. She just keeps holding you by the underarms. “It’s top secret until Gam tells you himself. So what’s up now? I danced to like, a million songs, and it’s like four am and I was gonna go home and shower my boyfriend in love.”

“It is only one am,” she informs you. “Your shift began at eight tonight, and you were two hours late. You did not dance for that long. You will work the floor until two, and then you are permitted to go home. On a separate note, Aranea has collected and counted the money thrown at you today. Is there any stuffed in your clothes?”

“Thirty dollars,” you say, reaching into the sequined top and pulling out a ten and a twenty.

Kanaya wrinkles her nose, but you don’t think it’s in disgust. Actually, you aren’t entirely sure why she does it at all. “Aranea tallied about seven hundred dollars. That means that you earned one hundred dollars for every song you performed, so I refuse to hear any complaints about the over-abundance of songs I had you dance to tonight.”

You fist-pump triumphantly. “I can finally pay off Dave’s headphones!”

Kanaya smiles gently, and you know she isn’t mad with you anymore. If she was at all. “I swear, you are the cutest stripper I have ever seen in my lifetime.”

“What about that new kid? Tavros?”

Kanaya sighs wistfully and starts walking. You follow. “We could not hire him. While a certain amount of cuteness and innocence is necessary for this job, he simply had too much of it. You have an equal dose of it and asshole-ishness, if I am permitted to use a word like that. If it is even a real word at all. Nonetheless, you are correct for the job, he was not. I informed him that the pet store down the street is hiring.”

If someone else had told someone something like that, it probably would’ve sounded rude. But when Kanaya says it, it sounds like nothing more than a helpful little tip on how to make some extra cash. “I’m wearing a dress on the floor tonight.”

“Whatever floats your boat,” Kanaya replies. “I will see you in a few minutes. One of your siblings that is not Jake is at the bar tonight, just a warning. Actually, I believe both of them may be?”

You groan. Not Jane _and_ Jade. You can handle one of them coming to your workplace, but not both of them. Because of this new information, you decide to slam your changing room door behind yourself like a petulant child. You change out of your stage outfit and into a skin-tight, metallic blue dress and a pair of knee-high boots. You’re sure the outfit will get you a few nice tips, especially from regulars.

When you walk out to the floor, wobbling a bit in the platform boots, you spot Jane and Jade instantly. Roxy is working the bar and the bartender, Meenah, is having a conversation with Jane and Jade. Calliope is with them, too, holding hands with Jane and blowing kisses at Roxy when she passes by. You’re a waiter, of sorts. If someone orders food, you bring it to them. If someone orders a drink, you bring it to them. Sometimes, you take orders. It depends on the night and who’s working. Since you can see Karkat scrambling to hand orders over to the chef _and_ Roxy, you guess you’re on delivering duty.

“Here’s an order of fries and an appletini, they go to table three,” you hear, which snaps you out of your trance. Roxy is holding a tray in her hand, braced against the counter, giving you a smile that’s almost mischievous. Like there’s a surprise for you at table three. You notice that Jane and Jade have stopped their conversations to smile at you the same way, too. Calliope is giving you a weak, almost sympathetic smile, brushing a strand of blonde hair behind her ear nervously.

You take the tray from Roxy. “Right, okay,” you say, trying to throw yourself back on track even though they’re still smiling eerily and it’s giving you the creeps.

You scope out the place for table three and when you spot it you duck your head and walk over to it carefully, watching your feet. You don’t usually make eye contact with the people you serve - it isn’t really your thing. They usually stuff a few bucks into the tops of your boots, anyway. If the asshole is tall enough, he might shove it into the front of your dress or shirt. “Nice dress you got on,” the person says before you can walk away, and you freeze. No. No _way._ It can’t be who you think it is. He’s at home sleeping, right? Right. “Makes your ass look nice. Betcha got a boyfriend at home who pounds it pretty often.”

Yep, it’s him alright. “Uh, hey, Dave,” you say, giggling breathily. First of all, why is Dave here? Second of all, _why is Dave here_? Third of all, how _much_ is Dave here? “What’re you doing here? Don’t you have class tomorrow?”

You’re still facing away from him, but you can picture him throwing his legs out and bracing the back of his head against his hands. “Decided I’d skip. Wanted to see where you work. Jade told me you Harleybert promised to tell me about it tonight, but that wasn’t good enough. Got to see you dance and everythin’. You put on quite a show, babe.”

You gulp and spin to face him so fast you wouldn’t doubt you give yourself whiplash. “I’m sorry, Dave, seriously! I meant to tell you, but I didn’t want you to hate me or anything, and it’s not like I’m out here selling my body, I’m just trying to make money for us and trust me when I say this makes me a _lot_ of money, and I like dancing, and-”

“Dude, breathe,” Dave cuts you off. You breathe through your nose. “It’s fine. Still love you the same. Tell me if anyone gets a little too handsy, though. I’ll kick their ass in a heartbeat.”

You giggle again, but it isn’t quite as nervously this time. “Okay, cool. I’m glad you’re cool with this. That’s. It’s great, that you don’t mind. My shift is over at two, are you okay with waiting until then?”

“Since I already decided to skip class tomorrow and Roxy makes bomb ass appletinis, I’m pretty chill with waiting. Plus, Gamzee is the DJ here, right?”

You nod. “If you want to talk to him, he’s up in his booth.”

Dave nods back, and you spin away because you need to get back to work.

You collect another one-hundred and thirty dollars in tips by the end of your shift, and both Jade and Dave’s eyes widen when you stuff the money into the pink bag. “What? What. I told you I make a lot of money here.”

“He is quite popular,” Kanaya adds, leaning back in her seat and taking another sip of tea. You aren’t exactly sure how she got tea, since all you have is a bar that’s stocked with alcohol, but like with most things concerning Kanaya, you won’t question it. “He uses his profit for good, though.”

Your face flushes. Dave and Jade both raise their eyebrows at you. You can tell they’re probably ready to ask a million questions, ones that you aren’t prepared to answer, so you abandon your dress and boots (the place is empty and you don’t mind changing in front of the people who’re still here, anyway) and change into a pair of gray sweatpants and Dave’s hoodie. “Well, let’s go home! I’m tired and kinda hungry.”

Dave is driving, so you get to sit in the passenger’s seat. Jade sits in the back with her arms crossed the entire time, and when Dave pulls up at her house she whaps him upside the head for letting you sit in the front instead of her and kisses you on the cheek. Once she’s safely inside her house Dave pulls away. He stops by McDonald's before going home (“what, you said you were hungry”) and you get a two cheeseburger meal even though it’s three in the morning and eat it on the way back home.

You throw your garbage out once you’ve made it inside, and then you change into nothing but a pair of (Dave’s) boxers. They hang off of your hips and look so loose that it’s kind of ridiculous, but you don’t mind, and you doubt Dave does, either. He gets cold a lot easier than you so he’s in a sweatshirt (his) and a pair of Hello Kitty pajama pants (also his). He’s six feet tall and you’re only five feet tall, so he can’t exactly wear your clothes like you can wear his.

Once you’re finally in bed, curled against his chest with his arm around your waist, you decide that you aren’t really tired. You know he isn’t, either, because he’s doing the thing where he traces his fingertips over the TG on the right side of your lower back. He tells you it makes him sleepy. You tell him he does it because he’s sentimental. “I can’t fucking sleep,” you say, and it’s muffled by the fabric of his sweatshirt but you know he understands you.

(If he can understand what you say with his dick in your mouth, he can understand anything you say. If he says he can’t, he’s a liar.)

“Me neither,” he responds. “Talking disturbs the peace.”

“Fuck you,” you reply. “There is no peace here. Play one of your mixes.”

He gets up and you whine for him to come back. He tells you he can’t play one of his mixes if he can’t get to his laptop and speakers, and you groan and turn your back to him. You aren’t actually mad, or anything; you’re just kind of cold. That might be because he kicked the covers off so he could get out of bed, but you’re too lazy to reach for them, so instead you curl into yourself. You aren’t surprised that it’s taking so long for him to pick a mix to play, because he’s always indecisive when it comes to _you_ asking for him to play something. When it’s Rose or Jade, he has no problem, but when it’s you he feels like he needs to impress you or something.

He has the speakers pretty low, but you can still tell it’s the mix he first made for you when you started dating in sixth grade. When you feel the bed dip next to you and the covers touch your legs, you turn back the other way and bury your face in Dave’s chest. He makes sure the blankets come up to your shoulders, but they don’t even come past his waist. You guess he doesn’t care because he has so many layers on.

He wraps his arm around you and starts tracing the tattoo again, over and over, the medium-sized red TG inscribed on the right side of your lower back. He traces the letters T and G, and you lose count after ten. “I hate this song,” you tell him when you hear the version of _How Do I Live?_ that he remixed himself start playing. “It’s terrible. Absolutely awful. Why did you think it was a good idea?”

“I was twelve,” he tells you. “I wanted your dick.”

You punch his shoulder. He keeps tracing his fingertips over the tattoo. “You’re an ass.”

He kisses the top of your head, and you feel him nod. “But I’m your ass.”

You lean up and press your mouths together. He returns the favor for a few minutes before you pull away because you’re actually starting to get tired, and you lay your head back on his chest. You can hear his heart beating. (It’s fast.) “Love you,” you mumble. “You sleep in too much. Get up and make me pancakes tomorrow, okay?”

He snorts. “Love you, too. I don’t sleep in that much and I’m not making you pancakes.”

(He does sleep a lot, way too much, and he’s a liar. He gets up at eight the next day even though he falls asleep at six and makes you pancakes. He gives you breakfast in bed, and then he collapses facefirst on the bed and falls asleep. You finish your pancakes and go back to sleep, too.)

**Author's Note:**

> this is an absolute clusterfuck of a oneshot. i had no idea where i was going with it, no idea what i wanted to do with it, nothing at all. this is the result. i hope you like it.
> 
> headcanon: john has a tattoo on the right side of his lower back. it's the letters TG and it's in red.


End file.
